BBC Documentary: A deep conspiracy against India

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), national broadcaster of the United Kingdom (UK), is again in the news because of the manufactured narrative it has attempted to present through a series of documentaries on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The first part of the documentary is based on the Gujarat violence in 2002, which started after 59 Hindu karsevaks were burnt alive by a Muslim mob at the Godhra railway station while they were returning from Ayodhya. The Central Government has justifiably blocked the documentary permanently using emergency powers. The order was passed under the emergency provisions of the Information Technology Rules, 2021.

Clean chit by court

Here it is worth mentioning that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been given a clean chit by India’s apex court as there is no evidence against him. Even the Nanavati Commission report on the 2002 Gujarat violence tabled in the State Legislative Assembly in 2019 said, “There is no evidence to show that these attacks were either inspired or instigated or abetted by any Minister of the State.”

Also, in June 2022, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal against the clean chit given by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to Narendra Modi in the 2002 Gujarat violence case. The apex court accepted the SIT report and held that the plea was an attempt to keep the pot boiling.

Now, it becomes vital to understand the motive behind this BBC documentary. Earlier too, in 2015, the BBC made a controversial documentary projecting India as unsafe for women. Soon the truth was out about its own home base. The Crime Survey for England and Wales in March 2020 estimated 1.6 million women aged 16 to 74 years in England and Wales experienced domestic abuse. Also, 3 per cent of women aged between16 to 74 in England and Wales have experienced sexual assault. It’s been the practice of Britain’s deep state to use media groups for its own pusposes. The BBC has been frequently accused of working as information weaponry for the British Government and its intelligence agencies. “The British Government secretly funded Reuters in the 1960s and 1970s at the behest of an anti-Soviet propaganda unit linked to British intelligence and concealed the funding by using the BBC to make the payments,” a declassified Government document revealed in January 2020.

Glorifying terrorists

Earlier Governments in India have also been aware of the BBC agenda. During the 1965 war with Pakistan, India banned the BBC for biased reporting. It was again banned in 1970 by the Indira Gandhi Government. The BBC also allegedly gave its platform to hard-core Khalistani terrorists when former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated. In 2016, the BBC referred to Burhan Wani, the so-called commander of a terrorist outfit in Kashmir, as a charismatic young militant. It also did biased reporting and favoured anti-India elements during the 2020 Delhi riots, farm protests, and CAA protests. During the 2020 anti-Hindu violence in Delhi, the BBC along with other Western media organisations projected Muslims as victims. It does not end here. The BBC has been consistently targeting Hindu festivals too – in 2012, the UK broadcaster referred to Holi as a “filthy festival”.

A habitual liar

Jack Straw, former UK Foreign Secretary, who is reportedly behind the documentary series against India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is a habitual offender. In 2003, Straw himself admitted that the dossier on Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction caused an “embarrassment” to the UK Government. In 2015, Straw was branded a “liar” in the House of Commons as he justified the involvement of the UK in the Iraq War in 2003. Straw, who was Foreign Secretary from 2001 to 2006, was speaking in a debate on the Iraq War. He drew a slew of abuse from Respect MP George Galloway during a discussion with the UN Security Council. Jack Straw was also involved in the alleged abduction and torture of a Libyan dissident and his pregnant wife. Notably, many experts believe that there are about 35 per cent of Muslims and less than half per cent are Hindus in Jack Straw’s constituency. So, this documentary has been made to appease Muslims, particularly Islamists in the UK.

Speaking on this issue, French journalist Francois Gautier said, “The true story of the Godhra violence has never been told by the BBC. It started because 59 Hindus, 32 of them women and children, were burnt to death like animals in the Sabarmati Express, as they had just come back from Ayodhya. Let me say two things. One, that it is not Shri Modi who perpetrated these crimes with his own hands; and two, that if my wife or my daughter had been burnt to death by criminals, I would have also retaliated. Of course the
BBC never mentioned this first extremely important piece of gory news.”

Describing BBC’s documentary as bad Journalism, Gautier said, “The second part of the BBC documentary deals with more recent events, like the removal of Article 370 in 2019. Again, willfully bad journalism. Kashmiri Muslims in the documentary portray themselves as victims. But I have seen with my own eyes that they started a war against India in the name of Islam. I was also a witness to the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus – 3,50,000 of them were chased out of their ancestral home, only because they belonged to another religion and not Islam. There again, the BBC kept quiet. Also, Nehru made a provision that no citizen from other part of India could own a business in Kashmir, buy a house and settle there. This did not stop the Kashmiri Muslims from pouring all over India, from Delhi to Pondicherry. This was an injustice that Mr Modi set right,” Gautier added.

Divide and Rule­­­

Ambassador Anil Trigunayat, who is among 302 eminent citizens who wrote an open letter against the BBC documentary, said: “The BBC and the deep state is reflective of the western mindset which refuses to accept that a country once ruled by them can surpass them and one of Indian origin person can rule them. When they have nothing to carp about, they resort to hypocrisy, forgetting their own crimes against humanity, conveniently forgetting their criminal colonial past, and dig out prejudicial, baseless and illegal theories to stoke communal discord in keeping with their time tested tricks –divide and rule. India believes in the rule of law and gives respect and credence to the rulings of the Supreme Court. The frequency of such canards will surely increase as India moves up the ladder, hence a robust media strategy should be crafted to preemptively deal with such wilful and  designed irreverence.”

While talking on this issue, Kapil Dudakia, writer and political analyst from the United Kingdom, said, “The BBC as an institution has degraded itself to such an extent that it is now difficult for anyone to claim it to be independent or an authentic source of news. It has consistently shown itself to be anti-India. This institutionally racist behaviour has now reached dangerous levels where many believe it to be anti-Hindu and anti-Modi. I am therefore not surprised that it has taken the fake account of biased politicians from a degraded Labour government of the time to weave a narrative of deceit and prejudice. Even the then Minister, Jack Straw, has stated that at best the so-called ‘report’ was more a collection of beliefs and hearsay, rather than any verifiable evidence. The Supreme Court of India has declared without exception that PM Modi has no case to answer. What we witness today is a global cabal composed of the Left, the extremists and the Islamists who have fostered a partnership of hate towards India. The BBC has become a vehicle for promoting and propagating this fake news.”

“In my view, it is high time that the Government of India takes stern action against such miscreants. It should place a total ban on the BBC and all media entities that continue to give a platform to their fake news. In the 21st century, India should stand tall and never allow the bigoted imperial west to dictate,” he added.

Ashok Sajjanhar, former Ambassador to Kazakhstan, Sweden & Latvia, while speaking on this issue said, “This documentary, made with a malicious intent by the BBC, has an agenda because it does not mention the fact that the Gujarat violence started only after 59 Hindu karsevaks, returning from Ayodhya, were burnt alive in the Sabarmati Express. It does not mention that those people who were killed were Hindus and the nefarious act was carried out by Muslims. The so-called documentary is silent on many facts due to an underlying malicious intent to defame India and to disparage Prime Minister Modi. It does not even mention the Supreme Court’s judgement, which gave a clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The BBC is a part of a large anti-India lobby in the UK. The BBC appears to have come out with this documentary because India is doing extremely well in several areas where many countries have failed to perform creditably. India is the fastest growing major economy in the world today. India has taken a very principled stand on the Russia-Ukraine war, which is not found acceptable by several elements in the West including the BBC. So, through this documentary, the BBC is trying to malign the image of India and its leadership in the world.”

“Most importantly, I would like to mention Jack Straw, former UK foreign secretary, who is seen in the documentary and who has also given an interview to a web portal in India. If he says he sent some of the diplomats to undertake an investigation or an inquiry, I think it was going much beyond the diplomatic responsibilities of the officials, who were posted in the UK High Commission. I think this should be investigated, because this was an interference in the internal affairs of the country. Straw can come to any conclusion, but he does not offer any evidence. Hence his views have no validity. In fact, the Supreme court has categorically stated that a criminal conspiracy was hatched by some people by fabricating false evidence with a clear intention to target the then Chief Minister Modi. I think Jack Straw could have been motivated by electoral compulsions. In his constituency, there are about 35 per cent Muslims and less than half per cent are Hindus. So, this documentary has been made to appease Muslims, particularly Islamists in the UK,” Sajjanhar added.